Diaries, Journals and Discoveries
by Mrowrkat98
Summary: The Animorphs have stressful lives. When they find an outlet, why not use it? But they're stress may cause them to be careless. Four oneshots. Please R&R.
1. Cassie

_Dear Diary,_

It's midnight. I've been trying to sleep for an hour now, but every time I close my eyes, I start having terrible nightmares. Nightmares full of disgusting images and complex plots. I dream in three dimensions now. Every detail is so vivid. Too vivid. Maybe I should go to therapy for those. Maybe the therapist can calm them somehow. But then again…

_I've been grounded for two months straight, because my parents keep catching me every time I go out. When they ask me where I went, I tell them I was with Rachel or Jake. It's the truth, but I think they're starting do doubt even that. By now, they probably think I'm doing drugs or something, with my dropping grades and constantly leaving the house. I feel bad that they think those things, but I don't blame them. If I had a kid who did that stuff, I'd be suspicious too._

_And it's not as if I can just stay at home either. I _have_ to go._

_My grades are getting really bad. At this rate, I'll never make it into a good college, forget about university. I keep getting in trouble for skipping, and more than that, when I'm not in class, I miss all the important stuff. I never have time to read over the notes that I photocopy from other people. The teachers are getting frustrated with me, not to mention the others. We're becoming known as troublemakers, even though we rarely cause any kind of trouble in class._

_At school, they've stopped asking about Tobias. At first, it was just the teachers asking why he wasn't in class. Nobody really knew. Then the principal looked into it. He called Tobias' uncle, but there was never an answer. I guess they finally gave up. I hope Tobias is okay. I feel sorry for him, he never had the greatest home life, but he couldn't be that much better off now._

_Could he?_

_I think I'll try sleeping… again._

_I didn't sleep. Now it's four in the morning, and I'm even more exhausted. My clothes are torn up now. How am I supposed to explain this to my parents? Maybe I'll tell them that I'm actually a werewolf. That sounds like something Marco would pull. What if I said that one of the animals in the barn did it when I was trying to give them their medication? No, I won't lie, that'll make it worse. I feel bad enough not telling the full truth._

_I can't even tell the whole truth in my diary. Why? Someone might find it._

_Everyone else lies. Some people do it on a daily basis unnecessarily. Why? I'll never know. I'd really rather tell the truth and get in trouble than have to lie. But when the truth could hurt people, is it okay to lie? I might never know._

_My parents used to tell me that whatever path in life I chose, they'd be happy for me. They don't tell me that anymore. It's hard for them, I understand. I only wish they knew how hard it was on me to leave them in the dark._

_One day they'll know._

_On top of that, Jake and I are getting closer. I hate it when Rachel tries to talk about it. It can't happen anyway, with what we're going through. On that very first night, he found me instead of Tom. It's a good thing he did, even though he never did manage to find Tom. If he hadn't found me, all of us would have been in it deep. I'm just glad that that night didn't end in disaster. It made me realize what _could_ happen._

_Jake means the world to me. We've kissed once, but since then, he hasn't said anything about it, and I'm scared to bring it up. All he revealed is that that moment is pressed into the memories of hundreds of others, and will probably remain there forever._

_Things are really weird. I don't want to do what I do, but I have to. I tried stopping, but that led me right back in a circle. No backing out now, my friends need my help._

_My friends at school, all but Rachel, have backed away from me. I suppose that I've changed a lot since it all started. I feel like a zombie going through the motions when I'm actually at school._

Maybe, maybe if I tell my parents, maybe things would be easier. But if they knew… if they knew what I did, would they understand? Would they be able to see past their immediate motives and…

Cassie dropped her pen and sighed. She was tired of this, tired of having to hide her life even from her diary. She knew that she'd written too much. She knew that if her parents read it, they would be suspicious. She knew that they would confront her. And though she trusted her parents, she knew that soon they would decide that they had to read her diary. How else do you know exactly what's going on in a girl's life? How else do you understand her deepest fears, her feelings?

Cassie may have been a warrior, but she was still a young teenage girl. Why couldn't she at least rely on her diary?

She reached to tear the page out, but stopped herself. She was exhausted after her last-minute mission six hours ago. She had lied about the time. Dawn was breaking, stars were disappearing, and in one hour, her alarm would sound in the day. Monday. She hated Monday. Monday meant that if something came up, she'd have to miss school… again.

She left the page there. _Maybe it's best if they do read it,_ she thought dimly through the blurred exhaustion. She put the diary on her bedside table, not bothering to lock it. _Let them know… They deserve to know…_

Cassie fell asleep on her bed, still dressed in her torn morphing clothes. Her hair was greasy, her face had smudges of dirt on it and she was on top of the covers. She welcomed the nightmares. After all, they were better than her reality.

At seven-thirty in the morning, Cassie's father walked into her room. She had slept past her alarm. He observed her, lying there on the bed in tattered clothes with dirt smudged on her face. Her hair was oily and unruly, managing to stick out at the strangest angles. He saw the diary too, laying facedown on her bedside table. He had a choice, a difficult decision lay before him.

Should he invade his daughter's privacy to the highest level? Would he read her deepest secrets and completely betray her trust?

He glanced again at his daughter, then picked up the book.


	2. Marco

_Journal_

_February 5_

_Marco_

_When is it time to stop?_

_People say that sometimes, people take jokes too far. _

_What is too far? _

_Is it too far when you're insulting someone? Or is it when a prank goes to far and becomes something too big to handle?_

_Is too far when someone cries? When they die? When your words cut deeper than you could have possibly imagined?_

_All good jokes are made at someone's expense, whether it be a real or imaginary person. Nobody laughs when you use the word 'theoretically.'_

_Jokes are supposed to be funny. Witty. You have to know what you're talking about before you make fun of it. Nobody likes it when you tell a joke that is completely wrong. Then you become the jerk._

_When you get jokes right, people laugh. They lighten up, become happier. Everyone likes you because you're the comedian._

_But, sometimes you're on the receiving end of a joke. The joke is at your expense. When it comes time to face irony's cold face, can you laugh and pretend that the pain isn't digging into your heart? Can you laugh and pretend that it doesn't pain you at all?_

_A joke. What makes it funny? Funny is irony, funny is weird. _

_What about when things are horribly ironic, hilariously weird, and you can't laugh? When good old 'jo mamma' jokes turn around and bite you in the ass? What about the moments when you're completely serious, when you deeply need what you ask of the people around you… and they laugh? They think it's another one of your jokes._

'_Haha, Marco, you're so funny.'_

_It feels as if a knife has been stabbed through your heart. As if everything in the world is crumbling around you_. Laugh, just laugh,_ you think. You can't let them know that you were serious, so you force it. You force a laugh and suddenly they know, they know you weren't joking. But it's all a charade now. All a charade. You both laugh, and you pretend that it was a joke. You pretend that nobody knows the truth._

_Yeah, I suppose I am pretty darn hilarious._

A tear dripped on to the page.

Marco always hated journals at school. The teacher liked making them write philosophically, it built character. It built morals.

He kept looking down and wiped his eyes.

_Stop crying man, what are you, a baby?_

His mom was his enemy. That's irony for you.

'_Guess what Marco? Jo mamma's a big fat slug.'_

On top of that, he'd been refused a great many times by a great many girls. He had never spent so much emotion on one girl as he had on Rachel. Yet, she loved Tobias. He knew it. He tried to respect it. But he didn't want to give up. What did that mean?

_It means exactly what you think it means, Marco._

He sniffed back his tears and pretended to have something in his eye. Soon he stifled the tears completely and was able to sit up again. His eyes darted up at the disgustingly large clock on the wall. He had two minutes left to finish his journal.

"Screw this," he whispered. He turned his head ever so slightly to see Jake, who was writing frantically. "That makes one of us."

He stood up and handed in his journal, however pathetically short it was. He couldn't finish.

When he arrived back at his seat, he saw Cassie eyeing him curiously.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked quietly.

He nodded. "Just had something in my eye."

Cassie didn't believe him. It showed on every inch of her face. Marco didn't care anymore. She could think what she wanted, he'd defended his manliness enough.

Men don't cry when there's something so small in their eye.


	3. Rachel

_Dear Diary,_

_I'm not hiding anymore. This is ridiculous. I'll write whatever I damn well want in my diary, so long as I hide it well enough._

_I'm fighting a war. I'll make that perfectly clear. I'm fighting against my cousin, against the guy that runs Micky D's. I'm warring against the people that run the salon downtown, the Sharing and the most sadistic creature in the whole galaxy: Visser Three._

_I have killed. I, Rachel, innocent little model girl, has become Xena: Warrior Princess. I'm ruthless, I'm violent, I'm everything that I once feared. I don't kill because I have to anymore, it's a need. It's a horrible, disgusting drug, adrenaline. The feeling that comes when you're an inch from death and refuse to go down without a legendary battle. When running for your life isn't enough anymore, you have to turn around and face your enemy head-on._

_I hate what I do, and at the same time, I love it the way an alcoholic loves drinks. When there hasn't been a mission for a while, I pick fights at school. I can't control it anymore and I feel like an addict. I need adrenaline to live. It's my own personal high._

_The Grizzly. It has so much power, so much grace. Maybe nobody else sees it that way, but I do. The grizzly can be completely surrounded by hork-bajir and still feel completely cool. Then my human brain kicks in with adrenaline and I can think at a million miles per hour. I'm ready, power coursing through me. Muscle upon muscle upon muscle, I can take out as many as I need with powerful ease._

_Jake knows what I feel. He hides it, but he must know. A tiger is probably the same as the grizzly._

_I know how to fight. Why waste my talents?_

o0o0o

Rachel shook her head.

_Disgusting._

She scribbled a single, snaking line across the page from corner to corner and ripped it out. She stared at it with horror.

_What am I?_

She crumpled up the paper and threw it to the ground. She couldn't have written that, could she? That wasn't Rachel. The person who had written that was horrible… a monster.

The paper skidded to the middle of her room. It was purple, scented paper. The kind that you find in therapeutic diaries.

That paper, crumpled and lost in the middle of the room, it represented Rachel. The beautiful, designer paper, ripped from it's book and crumpled into disfigurement, then thrust into loneliness.

Yes, the paper was exactly like Rachel.

A tear dripped down her face.

TAP, TAP.

Tobias hovered at the window. ((Rachel, emergency meeting at the barn. Fly, this is really big.))

"Five minutes," Rachel said, turning to hide the tear that represented all the things wrong in her life.

((Rachel… are you okay?))

Rachel gathered up all of her breath shakily, trying to say in a steady voice, "I'm fine."

((Hurry.))

Tobias flew away as Rachel thrust open the window. She stripped out of her normal clothes, revealing a bodysuit underneath. She morphed eagle and swooped out the window.

Moments later, Jordan entered her room.

"Rach, I need to borrow your-" she stopped talking as she saw the open window. Rachel wasn't here. But she had been a moment ago, hadn't she?

As she walked over to look out the window, no doubt hoping to catch Rachel sneaking out, her foot brushed a piece of paper. A _purple _piece of paper.

Jordan found no difficulty reading through the scribble on the page.


	4. Jake

**A/N: This is it guys, last installment. From the beginning, I was only planning on it being oneshots. If someone thinks it has potential for more, let me know.**

_Journal_

_Jake_

_February 5_

_War._

_It's a disturbing topic. Nobody likes talking about killing, about the lives taken in senseless battle._

_People fight to protect. They fight for honor, they fight for love, they fight to prove themselves._

_It's all an image, war. You're seeing yourself leaping into battle courageously, fighting valiantly. You are perfect in that image. Sure, you have a dirt-streaked face, sure, you're tired, but you're winning. You're beating the odds, even though it's ten to one. Then, when the battle is done and you've slain your foe, you come home a hero. People carry you on their shoulders, songs, poems, stories are written of the things you have done._

_But then you _do_ go into battle. Then, you're tired before it begins. You're already drenched in sweat and scared halfway to death. You're waiting for it to begin and now, those images you had are gone. You're looking for a way out. You want to break the ranks and run all the way home, however far that may be. _

_Fact is, you're not half as brave or as talented as you'd imagined. Modest or not, you still pictured it much better than this. You know in your heart that it's your time to die, even though the odds favor you. You always thought that when you were going to die, you'd accept it. But now, thousands of thoughts race through your head, asking again and again, the same question. _

_Does it end here?_

_You're scared so badly that you can't tell if it's sweat drenching your pants or something else. You don't know what will happen. You know that things won't go as planned._

_But if the people around you see your panic, it will lead them into a state of utter terror._

_So what do you do? Give in to panic or act as if you know what you're doing? It's a tougher decision than anyone believes. Few people in the world can follow through with the right choice._

_What makes it so hard? You'd think that it'd be a no-brainer, but fear does things to you that are unimaginable. It tears you inside out._

_If you want to see who a person is, what they really are, scare them within an inch of their lives, you'll see their true nature._

_What if you want to know your true nature? What if you, yourself, want to know who you are?_

_I recommend not trying. Can you deal with any answer that is given?_

_Can you know then that answer is there?_

_And can you live with yourself, if it's not what you expected?_

_All this races through your head as you charge reluctantly into battle. You wish you had a way out, but you're pretending to defend your honor, though any honor you had left when you looked your enemy in the face. Now it's all about survival. One of you will die, and it's not your fault when the other one goes down, is it?_

_That person could have been you._

_Then, when the battle is over and you survey the battlefield, you realize that you've lost so much more than you've gained. Those still alive cry for their various family members, in a desperate hope for someone to hear their last words._

_No, there is no honor in that. No pride. More died than were saved._

_People who talk about those things have never been the last one standing._

Jake leaned back in his chair and surveyed his handiwork. When the teacher handed it back, he decided, he would keep it.

He got up to hand it in just as the teacher announced that the time was up. As he sat back down in his seat, he noticed Cassie looking his way. She nodded ever so slightly, indicating that she wanted to speak with him.

He nodded back and took his seat. They would talk at lunchbreak.

When the lunch bell rang, the teacher at the front of the room began reading the journals, skimming over them one by one. He stopped at Marco's. A single droplet of water had morphed a spot at the bottom of the page. He read it over.

Short, but it was written with feeling. Marco was going through hard times.

Again, he stopped when he reached Jake's. Both boys had been writing more interesting journals lately, and the teacher knew that they were best friends. Whatever they were dealing with, it had to be difficult. So he picked up the phone and slowly began dialing their parents, first Jake, then Marco.

**A/N: DUNDUNDUN...** **Anyway, thanks for reading. Please review. Feel free to get all creative and try to think up how the animorphs got out of this one. If you're not creative, then Cassie, Marco and Jake get grounded and therapy, while Jordan officially becomes terrified of her older sister and keeps her mouth shut. :P**

**PLEASE REVIEW! PLEASE?**


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